Chinese Version2020-02-29

It was raining in the morning and I took an umbrella out for a walk.

On this cloudy rainy gray day, all the trees still have bare branches, Waltham didn’t seem to have any sign of spring, although the purple and white magnolia flowers in California were already in full bloom, and the canola flowers in my hometown Zigong were now all in golden color.

When I walked across the campus bridge over South Street, I saw a tree full of yellow flowers on the slope at the end of the bridge. The yellow flowers with raindrops were sparkling.

In the rain, I stopped at the end of the bridge. One hand held onto the umbrella, and the other hand held onto my iPhone to take photos of the yellow flowers. I didn’t realize that my holding my umbrella I was getting in the way at the end of the bridge.

A hurrying teacher stopped beside me and waited for me to make way for her to pass.

As I stepped aside, I pointed to the sparkling yellow flowers and said: “Look, the flowers are blooming.”

The teacher turned her head and saw the tree full of yellow flowers and sighed: “Wow, It is so pretty!”

She looked at the yellow flower tree and suggested as she walked away: “If you can photograph the contrast between the dead leaves and the yellow flowers, it would be prettier.”

”Thank you. Have a nice day!” I happily replied.

I stood at the end of the bridge, watching the teachers and students rushing to their classrooms in the rain, enjoying a picture of the traditional “Going to school in the morning” in fine days at a school campus on the East Coast.

In China, “Morning, go to school” is a completely different scenery now. Because of the coronavirus, high schools and universities have begun to teach online; teachers teach and answer questions through video conference at home, and students listen and ask questions through video at home. “Going to school in the morning” means students don’t need to get out of the house or care about the weather anymore in China.

In a very short period of time, this coronavirus has provided a new model for “going to school in the morning”, which shows that the reform of educational methods is not always difficult. (Coronavirus has quickly promoted the online teaching methods that may require long-term evaluation and small-scale testing and reviewing feedback in normal time, to such a great scale : colleges and middle schools across the country. Heroes are rising in difficult times!)

The tree full of yellow flowers on the slope at the end of the bridge: